Computer won't turn on!

I know there will be alot of different possible answers but I figured I would at least post it up. I built my own computer a few years ago and it's been running great. I was having a heat issue at one point but I layed down some arctic silver and that fixed the problem.

Well two days ago my computer just started freezing randomly. I'd have to turn it off and back on only to have it freeze whenever it felt like again. (It could be 3 minutes in or 2 hours in).

I opened up the case and blew a bunch of dust out. Was hoping that it would fix this issue. It didn't.

I took the heatsink off the cpu and figured maybe I should clean off the CPU and heatsink and place new arctic silver onto it. Well when pulling off the heatsink the CPU was stuck to it and I bent two prongs. After swearing at myself I carefully straightened them out so they looked like all the others. After that I completly cleaned off the heatsink and top of the cpu. I place the arctic silver on, spread it out evenly and placed the CPU back on the motherboard. It fits back into it's spot nice and the little lever goes down to hold it in place. I attached the heatsink, closed up the case, re-attached all the cords, flipped the swith in the back of the computer, hit the power button..... and nothing! I checked to make sure everything was plugged in ok and everything seams to be in tip-top shape.

Now I know that it could be a multitude of things but my computer has been running great for a while now. For it to die like this all of a sudden is crazy. If it helps, the little light on the motherboard does come on when the power to the back of the case is on. It's just that absolutly nothing happens when I hit the power button on the front of the case.

Can anyone help? I would just build a new computer like I want to anyway but money isn't very good right now.

1. did you slapping yourself loudly? If you does, can we have a video of that?

2. Welcome to Techspot, Fetter.

3. Sound like your power supply is shot. Please have the power supply tested to confirm that problem. If it does, here you go. Buy another one, it should cost you 20 to 40 bucks for generic one ( last 5 to 1 years ) or you will have to fork over 50 dollars for a quality one, such as enermax.

4. Like you explained, that you have a heat issues in the cpu area, i suggest you to go out and buy the dual fan power supply to eleminate the air circulation waste.

5. Did you bent your Pentium 4? Did you break off any pins? Can you please take it off and confirm that?

6. To make sure, your motherboard and power supply is on, you will need to refer to # 5 and # 3. Try # 3 first.

7. If you have to buy new pentium 4, the used pentium 4 should cost 15 to 70 dollars, no big deals. Make sure to check it up on tigerdirect.com

By the way, I can see the Pentium 4 3.0gHZ for 77 bucks. It is affordable. Plus, I don't think you have a HT compatible motherboard, since you haven't indicate what kind of board you are using. Please give us your motherboard information, so we can determine if you are able to run in HT.

Well, I went with what I thought it was and bought the new power supply and installed it 100% success! YES!

I do need to slap myself again though (sorry no videos) The instructions for this thing were atrocious, thank god I know what I'm doing. It said they had a SATA connector with the PSU but I couldn't find it! Then after 5 minutes of being pissed off I noticed that the cable I was looking for was settled down into other cables and was hiding. I felt so dumb.. but hey I was by myself so no one noticed... lol.

They wanted me to power off the old power supply, open the case, unhook everything, THEN unplug the AC cord from the back of the power supply. Reverse that and you get what they wanted me to do to put the new one back in. That's crazy!

But yes everything is up and running perfectly as I'm typing from my computer now. Sweet!